Park Service Ended a Wolf Study in Alaska, Since So Many Have Been Killed

posted Nov 21, 2016, 11:55 AM by chloe owens

8/12/16, by Anna V. Smith, High Country News

Park Service ended
a wolf study in Alaska, since so many have been killed

For more than two decades, the National Park Service
monitored the wolf packs in Alaska’s Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Now,
so many of the predators have been killed by the state’s Department of Fish and
Game that the feds have had to drop the program. It’s no longer feasible to conduct
research…The state has been shooting the wolves when they wander outside the
boundaries of the federal preserve, to try to increase populations of moose and
caribou for human hunters…since 2005, 90 wolves with ranges in Yukon-Charley
have been killed, including 13 radio-collared animals that were essential to
the park’s study. Each of the preserves’ nine wolf packs has lost members, and
three packs have been entirely eliminated, while another five have been reduced
to a single wolf each.